Gregory Bennet

Gregory Charles Bennet (born 7 April 1963) is an Australian bishop of the Catholic Church who has been the bishop of the Diocese of Sale since 2020. He previously served in the Archdiocese of Melbourne and became its vicar general in 2012.

Early life Bennet was born on 7 April 1963 in Melbourne, the second of four children of Len and Maureen Bennet. He was raised in the Melbourne suburbs of Canterbury and Balwyn North. His family moved to Bullengarook during his teenage years, He attended St Dominic’s Primary School in East Camberwell, All Hallows Primary School in Balwyn and Marcellin College in Bulleen. He graduated from Braemar College in Woodend.

He was appointed assistant priest of Greensborough and then administrator of Seymour. In 1996, he was sent to the United States to study pastoral psychology at Loyola College in Baltimore. In 1998 he studied spirituality at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome, where he obtained his Licentiate in Spirituality. He returned to Melbourne in 2000, when he was appointed director of the Ministry to Priests. In 2004, he became director of the Office for Evangelisation and in 2007, was appointed parish priest of Balwyn North.

In 2012, he was appointed Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Melbourne and Moderator of the Curia. In the same year, he was appointed as a Prelate of Honour of His Holiness by Pope Benedict XVI and given the title of Monsignor.

Episcopacy Pope Francis appointed Bennet Bishop of Sale on 27 June 2020. He received his episcopal consecration on 8 December 2020 from Peter Andrew Comensoli, Archbishop of Melbourne.

Pope Francis named him a member of the Dicastery for the Clergy on 23 March 2023. In May, he was elected Vice-President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, succeeding Archbishop Anthony Fisher. In 2025, he attended the Papal Inauguration Mass of Pope Leo XIV.